Differences between Russian and Czech in the Use of Aspect in Narrative Discourse and Factual Contexts

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

Please, see the attached file. 

Comments for author File: Comments.pdf

Author Response

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Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 2 Report

The goal of this paper is two-fold:

(1) Present results of a qualitative investigation into parallel corpus examples involving aspect (IPF and PF) in Russian and Czech (Section 3)

(2) Use (1) to highlight (dis)advantages of two formal accounts, and suggest a positive way forward (Section 4)

My general opinion is that (1) is done very well and, while some of the results are not surprising/novel, (1) is nevertheless a valuable contribution because of the methods employed (parallel corpus) and several emerging generalizations that are new and important for the description of aspect in Slavic.

I find (2) to be tentative and lacking in both precision and sophistication that is expected, especially given (1). My overall recommendation is to rewrite the paper with only (1) in mind, focusing on how the current work goes beyond prior studies on Russian and Czech (e.g., by Stunova), discussing the fruits of working with a parallel corpus (including more discussion of methodology, and an appendix of further data organized with the generalizations in mind), with ideas for further research on other Slavic languages.

If this suggestion is adopted, then I don't think the current manuscript requires major revision (section 4 stands on its own and can be easily taken out). The one place where the paper needs to be revised is the opening section. For example, it notes that "there is to date no formal account that adequately captures this cross-Slavic variation. The only formal accounts on the market..." Such statements would no longer be warranted since the paper would not contribute in this respect.

In what follows, I'll briefly justify my worry regarding (2), and then add some additional concerns that came up while reading the manuscript.

Justification for excluding (2): The formulas in (48) and (49) face too many questions that the author does not pursue. For example, there is existential quantification over events. That can't be right when it comes to IPF in either Czech or Russian. There is no discussion of how the reference time is set (how is "t" saturated?). How do we capture the intuition that, e.g. in Russian, "Yesterday, my good friend arrived(IPF)" entails that an arrival took place yesterday? In particular, how does "t is contained within the run time of e" capture such data? Much discussion in the paper (Sections 1-3) is about the General Factual, but formulas in (48) and (49) of IPF are not candidates for capturing this usage (at least it's not clear how), nor the differences between Czech and Russian. It's an interesting idea  that all differences between the two languages resides in the meaning of PF, but this is not explored in sufficient detail, nor is it compared with other approaches to PF, e.g., ones that propose Maximality (e.g. Filip, Filip & Rothstein). Why iota and not Max? How does the pragmatics work?

I realize that Section 4 is titled "Towards a general account", but unfortunately, I feel that this section hurts the paper more than it helps it given that the questions above are not addressed (and this is only a partial list of questions that arise -- other questions that arise concern how the account could be embedded within a dynamic semantics, which would capture contributions of reference time update and narrative structure). If these questions are properly addressed, then this would require a lot of work and, most likely, it would become a new paper in its own right. I think that if  a formal semantics is to be proposed, it has to be proposed with great care.

Other points:

* Use of "habitual" vs. "unique" (translated from Russian). I believe the standard distinction is between "habitual" and "episodic". Is there are reason not to use "episodic"? Also, what about "iterative" and "generic" uses? Is that subsumed under "habitual"? Some discussion is in order.

* The paper disregards the so-called 'vivid-exemplifying' use of the PF present due it being a "stylistic device" and the fact that such forms take on "a modal meaning". I don't understand the reasoning here. The examples considered in the parallel corpus are literary, with many stylistic devices used. Sounds to me like the restrictions on this usage should be studied and could tell us a lot about the semantics and pragmatics of tense and aspect: why does this only occur in the present? why does it only give rise to habitual meaning? why is it sometimes modal? Since this usage undermines the positive analysis pursued in this paper, the various dismissive references to this usage (in footnotes and text early in the manuscript) undermine the otherwise superb empirical research. If this usage is to be left open for further research, it must be acknowledged that this usage undermines the generalizations in the paper. Moreover, the differences in Table 1 should be revised accordingly: it's not the case that PF in Russian always describes a unique chain of events. Since "(almost excl)" is used in the table, why is it not used for the claim about unique chain of events? This is sloppy.

*On pg 14, the author says "In chain of unique events where one temporally follows the other, both languages use finite PF verb forms with telic predicates." This is a key generalization, but it's false as stated. Two concerns here:

(i) backshifting cases (e.g. flashbacks) can involve a chain of unique events where one temporally follows the other, and IPF can be used. Are generalizations only about narrative progression? If so, why? For Kamp & Reyle, who the author cite, flashbacks are just as important as narrative progression cases. Whatever the motivation, the generalizations need to be clearer about what is meant by "unique events where one temporally follows the other"

(ii) one can say something like "Last year, John visited Mary. Two years later, Mary visited John", using IPF in both sentences. Here we have a chain of unique events where one temporally follows the other, showing the empirical generalization proposed is false. One can distinguish difference reference time updates (e.g. with and without adverbials), but nothing of this sort is suggested in the paper.

 

Author Response

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Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 3 Report

I enjoyed reading this paper. It has the merit of combining comparative Slavic aspectology and formal semantics, which I very much welcome. See pdf.

Comments for author File: Comments.pdf

Author Response

see attachment

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Round 2

Reviewer 1 Report

The paper has improved considerably. It is clearly written and interesting. It provides novel corpus data and a thorough analysis.

Author Response

Thank you.